Tamil Nadu local body polls on Oct 17, 19

Tamil Nadu will go to the local body polls in two phases on October 17 and 19, State Election Commissioner P Seetharaman announced in Chennai on Sunday.

Seetharaman said that nominations would be collected from September 26. “The last date for submission of nomination document is October 3. The documents will be reviewed the following day and the last date for withdrawal of nominations is onOctober 6,” he said.

The first phase of elections will be held in 10 corporations. Notably, Chennai, along with Dindigul corporations, will go to polls only during the second phase. Counting of votes will be held on October 21.

In the first phase, elections will be held for 10 municipal corporations, 64 municipalities, 255 town panchayats and 193 panchayat unions while two municipal corporations -Chennai and Dindigul, 60 town panchayats and 273 town panchayat and 195 panchayat unions will go to the polls in the second phase.

Sufficient security will be provided during elections and the polling process will be videographed, he said, adding, the model code of conduct comes into effect immediately.

The state had a total of 5.80 crore voters, with 2.88 crore of them being men and 2.92 crore women. About three lakh electronic voting machines will be used, an official release said.